Google opens its AI agent playbook

Google has published a free white paper that outlines how AI agents work and what they can do. The company explains that AI agents are systems that can watch their environment, make choices, and act on their own to reach specific goals - without constant human input. The paper describes three main parts that make up AI agents. First, there's the AI model at the core. Second, the agent needs tools, which are APIs that allow it to interact with external systems. Third, Google includes what it calls an "orchestration layer" that manages the planning and logic operations. According to Google, these autonomous agents could significantly expand the capabilities of current language models.